For those who've lived in Chicago a while, you're familiar with our two seasons — winter ... and construction. This year was an exception, but usually, we get bitter cold followed by a bitter commute on gridlocked, torn-up roads.

But the good news during this construction season is that it's also typically one of our No. 1 job growth areas, and we very much need more jobs.

According to May's SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard, small-business hiring in the Chicago metropolitan area is down 0.1 percent this month. We're down 0.5 percent year over year in hiring and 2.5 percent in paychecks. The positive news is that we're doing better than the national year-over-year hiring number, which is down 1.5 percent.

Still, we're essentially just struggling to maintain, and that's frustrating. That's why when you're sitting in traffic because they're ripping apart I-294, or whatever route you take to and from your destination, take some solace in the fact that construction means more jobs. More jobs mean more people with money who can frequent our shops and contract our services, eventually helping our economy.

The gridlock that's really more concerning is what we've seen in Springfield and Washington, where inaction and uncertainty has left small business owners without answers as to where we're going economically.

Until we see more movement from our leaders, it's hard to move forward. However, our Scorecard survey did find that small businesses nationwide are making the most of this recovery with increased productivity. Nine out of 10 small business owners in our survey said they are seeing growth in their revenues, but 50 percent said their productivity is outpacing their growth.

This is not necessarily a bad problem for small business owners to have, because it demonstrates how you can do more while spending less.

However, we want to see more hiring in the economy, and small business owners need to see some clarity coming from the government. They will make do with whatever they're given, but they need some certainty about the direction in which we're heading so they can put some of the resources they've been saving to work.

Until then, we may have to just be a little more forgiving of the construction on our roadways this summer. At least this kind of gridlock has us slowly moving forward.

Michael Alter is president and CEO of SurePayroll, a small-business payroll services company based in Glenview. The company collects information on small-business hiring based on its nationwide database of SurePayroll software users; Mr. Alter comments on trendlines in the data each month here on Crain's blog for Chicago entrepreneurs.